Sung Dynasty,Pinyin SongSong dynastyWade-Giles romanization Sung(960–1279), Chinese dynasty that ruled the country (only in the south after 1127) during one of its most brilliant cultural epochs. The Sung dynasty was founded when Chao K’uang-yinIt is commonly divided into Bei (Northern) and Nan (Southern) Song periods, as the dynasty ruled only in South China after 1127.

The Bei Song was founded by Zhao Kuangyin, the military inspector general of the Chou dynasty, Hou (Later) Zhou dynasty (last of the Five Dynasties), who usurped control of the empire in a coup. Thereafter, he used his mastery of diplomatic maneuvering to persuade powerful potential rivals to exchange their power for honours and sinecures, and he proceeded to become an admirable emperor (known as Taizu, his temple name). He set the nation on a course of sound administration by instituting a competent and pragmatic civil service; he followed Confucian principles, lived modestly, and took the country’s finest military units under his personal command. Before his death he had begun an expansion into the southern small Ten Kingdoms of southern China.

Chao’s Taizu’s successors maintained an uneasy peace with the menacing Liao kingdom of the Khitan to the north. Over time, the quality of the bureaucracy deteriorated, and when the Juchen (Mongolian tribes Chinese: Nüzhen, or Ruzhen)—tribes from the North who overthrew the Liao) burst Liao—burst into the northern Sung Song state, it was easy prey. The Juchen took over the North and established a dynasty with a Chinese name, the ChinJin. But they were unable to take those regions of the Sung Song territory south of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang).

In the South, the climate and the beautiful surroundings were the setting for the Southern Sung Nan Song dynasty established (1127) by Kao-tsungthe emperor Gaozong. He chose a capital he called Lin-an Lin’an (presentHang-chouday Hangzhou) and set about maintaining defenses against the hostile North and restoring imperial authority in the hinterland. Kao-tsung Gaozong was a conscious admirer and emulator of the highly successful approach of the Han dynasty to the management of civil service, and the empire’s bureaucrats long functioned well. In due course, however, the dynasty began to decline. But the eventual fall of the Sung Song dynasty was neither sudden nor a collapse upon itself such as had ended several of its predecessors. The Mongols, under Genghis Khan, began their move on China with an assault on the Chin Jin state in the North in 1211. After their eventual success in the North and several decades of uneasy coexistence with the SungSong, the Mongols—under Genghis Khan’s grandsons—advanced on the Sung Song forces in 1250. The Sung Song forces fought on until 1276, when their capital fell. The dynasty finally ended in 1279 with the destruction of the Sung Song fleet near Guangzhou (Canton).

During the Sung dynastySong period, commerce developed to an unprecedented extent; trade guilds were organized, paper currency came into increasing use, and several cities with populations of more than 1,000,000 flourished along the principal waterways and the southeast coast. Widespread printing of the Confucian Classics and the use of movable type, beginning in the 11th century, brought literature and learning to the people. Flourishing private academies and state schools graduated increasing numbers of competitors for the civil service examinations. The administration developed a comprehensive welfare policy that made this one of the most humane periods in Chinese history. In the works of the 12th-century philosophers Chu Hsi Zhu Xi and Lu Chiu-yüanJiuyuan, Neo-Confucianism was systematized into a coherent doctrine.

The Sung Song dynasty is particularly noted for the great artistic achievements that it encouraged and, in part, subsidized. The Northern Sung Bei Song dynasty at Pien-ching Bianjing had begun a renewal of Buddhism and of literature and the arts. The greatest poets and painters in the empire were in attendance at court. The last of the Northern Sung Song emperors was himself perhaps the most noteworthy artist and art collector in the country. His capital at Pien-ching Kaifeng was a city of beauty, abounding in palaces, temples, and tall pagodas when, in 1126, the Juchen burned it. The architecture of the Sung Song era was noted for its tall structures; the highest pagoda at Pien-ching Bianjing was 360 feet (110 mmetres). Sung Song architects curved the eave line of roofs upward at the corners. Pagodas, six- or eight-sided and built of brick or wood, still survive from the period.

The sculpture of the Sung Song period continued to emphasize representations of the Buddha, and in that genre there were no substantive improvements over the work of Sung Song sculptors in succeeding dynasties. Landscape painting was one of the outstanding arts of the Northern SungBei Song, and its most noted figures were Fan K’uan Kuan and Li Ch’engCheng. In the Southern Sung Nan Song many great painters served at the Hanlin Academy, becoming noted for brush effects, miniatures, and, under Chan (Zen) influence, paintings of Buddhist deities, animals, and birds.

In the decorative arts the Sung Song dynasty marked a high point in Chinese pottery. Sung Song wares are noted for their simplicity of shape and the purity of colour and tone of their glazes. From the Northern dynasty Bei Song came TingDing, JuRu, ChunZhun, Tz’u-chouCizhou, northern celadon, and brown and black glazed wares; from the Southern came Ching-te-chen whiteware, Chi-chou Nan Song came Jingdezhen whiteware, Jizhou wares, celadons, and the black pottery of FukienFujian. Kuan Pottery produced at the Guan kilns, near the Southern Nan Song capital, was the finest of an enormous number of celadons of the dynasty.

The tendency of Sung Song jade carvers to adopt old lines and techniques makes difficult the accurate dating of jades that may be from the SungSong, and it has been similarly difficult to place Sung Song lacquerware.

In music the Northern Sung Bei Song adopted a two-stringed fiddle from the Mongolsnorthern tribes, and the court revived musical events and entertainmentsmusic was widely used for ceremonies, sacrifices, and other court events. Music attracted considerable attention in the dynasty’s enormous works of literature: the official history of the dynasty devoted 17 of its 496 chapters to musical events, and an encyclopaedia of that appeared in 1267 has 10 of 200 chapters on the subject of music. Music drama flourished throughout the SungSong, and distinctly different styles evolved in the North and the South. The literature of the Sung Song dynasty emphasized a return to old-time simplicity of expression in prose, and short tales called ku-wen guwen were written in great volume. A school of oral storytelling in the vernacular arose, and conventional poetry enjoyed wide cultivation. Sung Song poets achieved their greatest distinction, however, in the new genre of the tz’uci, sung poems of joy and despair. These poems became the literary hallmark of the dynasty. For the diversity and richness of its cultural achievements, the Sung Song dynasty is remembered as one of China’s greatest.